John Singer Sargent

oil on canvas

1880

Clark Art Institute

  • @[email protected]M
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    41 year ago

    I still love the fact that most things coming out of a whale are revolting, but very occasionally they make an extremely expensive scent nugget. Apparently it forms around a blockage or sharp object in the whale’s digestive tract, such as a squid beak.

  • @[email protected]
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    41 year ago

    An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.” Thus passes into silence one of the most influential and mysterious characters in the history of Ambergris

        • @[email protected]M
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          1 year ago

          Definitely. I didn’t even know ambergris was a thing outside the book. Gross word, ok book tho. I wish there would a been more about the mushroom-people cult. And this painting definitely gives me mushroom-people vibes.

          • @[email protected]
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            11 year ago

            It’s also a really gross substance! Gross all around. Apparently very important and expensive, but gross.

  • @[email protected]M
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    31 year ago

    “A woman holds part of her elaborate garment over a silver censer to capture the perfumed smoke of smoldering ambergris. A waxy substance extracted from whales, ambergris was used in some religious rituals and was also said to have aphrodisiac qualities. Sargent began this painting in Tangier, with a model posed on the patio of a rented house, but he completed it in his Paris studio. The finished painting presents a fantasy for Western eyes, combining details of costume and setting adapted from different regions across North Africa.”

    https://www.clarkart.edu/ArtPiece/Detail/Fumee-d-ambre-gris-(Smoke-of-Ambergris)-(2)